Craft and Hobby Catalogs for Mail-Order Supplies

Walk the craft aisle of a big-box store and you hit the limit fast: a dozen yarn colors, a handful of acrylic paints, one shelf of beginner kits. Serious crafters run into that ceiling constantly, which is why the craft and hobby world still runs heavily on catalogs. A dedicated catalog carries the depth a general retailer cannot stock — hundreds of fabric prints, professional-grade pigments, the obscure crochet hook size, the specific embroidery floss color a pattern calls for. The catalogs below are specialists, each owning a craft or a price position the others leave alone, and matching the catalog to your craft is the difference between finding exactly what a project needs and settling for what happened to be on the shelf.

Dick Blick (Blick Art Materials)

Dick Blick (dickblick.com) is the largest art-materials supplier in the United States and the default catalog for fine-art supplies. The company was founded in 1911 by Dick Blick in Galesburg, Illinois, and remains family-owned, having grown from a small mail-order operation into a national art-supply institution serving students, professional artists, and schools.

The catalog's strength is depth across every fine-art medium: professional and student-grade paints, brushes, papers, canvases, drawing materials, printmaking and ceramics supplies, and framing. Blick stocks the professional lines that general craft stores skip, and it prices competitively across both its own house brand and the premium names artists specify. For anyone working in painting, drawing, printmaking, or any traditional fine-art discipline, Dick Blick is the comprehensive source — the catalog where you can reliably find a specific pigment or paper weight rather than the nearest substitute.

Herrschners

Herrschners (herrschners.com) bills itself as the world's largest needlecraft catalog, and the claim reflects more than a century of focus. Founded in 1899 and based in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, the company built its business on yarn, needlework kits, and craft supplies sold by mail to a devoted hand-crafting audience.

The catalog is the deep specialist in needlecraft: knitting and crochet yarns, latch-hook and cross-stitch kits, afghan patterns, and the accessories those crafts require, much of it under house brands developed over decades. The kit selection is particularly strong — complete projects packaged with everything needed, a format that suits both beginners and crafters who want a defined project rather than loose supplies. Pricing is at the value end. For knitting, crochet, cross-stitch, and the broader needlework world, Herrschners offers a depth and a heritage that general craft retailers cannot approach.

Connecting Threads

Connecting Threads (connectingthreads.com) is the quilting specialist of the group. Operated by the Crafts Americana Group out of Vancouver, Washington — the same parent behind the well-known knitting retailer KnitPicks — the catalog focuses tightly on quilting fabric, thread, patterns, and the tools quilters use.

The differentiator is house-brand value. Connecting Threads develops its own fabric collections, threads, and notions, which lets it price quality quilting cotton and thread below the per-yard cost of name-brand fabric at general retailers. The catalog regularly sells coordinated fabric collections and pattern-and-fabric kits designed to work together, which removes the guesswork of matching prints across a large quilt. Pricing is value-oriented for the quality. For quilters specifically — and for anyone who sews and wants affordable, coordinated cotton in quantity — Connecting Threads is the focused, cost-effective choice.

Nasco

Nasco (enasco.com) approaches crafts from the education-supply side. Founded in 1941 in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, the company built a broad catalog serving schools, teachers, and institutions, with a deep art-and-craft section among its many categories.

That institutional heritage shapes what Nasco does well: bulk and classroom quantities, durable basics, and the kind of broad art-and-craft assortment a teacher equipping a classroom or a group leader supplying a project needs. The catalog carries craft materials, art supplies, and project kits in pack sizes built for groups rather than individuals, often at per-unit prices that reflect the bulk orientation. For anyone buying craft supplies for a classroom, a camp, a scout troop, or any setting where quantity and durability matter more than boutique selection, Nasco is the catalog built for that scale.

MindWare

MindWare (mindware.com) sits at the intersection of hobby, craft, and brain-engaging play. Founded in 1990 and now part of Oriental Trading, the company is known for what it calls brainy toys for all ages — puzzles, STEM kits, and hands-on craft and activity sets aimed at curious kids and the adults who shop for them.

The catalog's niche is the craft-as-activity gift: complex coloring and design kits, jewelry-making and mosaic sets, brain-teaser puzzles, and science-and-craft projects that combine a hobby with a learning angle. This makes MindWare less a raw-supply source than a curated activity catalog — the place to find a complete, giftable creative project rather than bulk materials. Pricing is mid-tier. For gifts that engage a child or hobbyist in a hands-on creative activity, and for crafters who prefer a packaged project over sourcing loose components, MindWare covers a corner the supply-focused catalogs do not.

Shipping, kits, and buying in bulk

Craft supplies carry a few ordering quirks worth understanding before you fill a cart. The first is shipping weight: art and craft materials are often heavy or bulky — reams of paper, jars of paint, bolts of fabric, boxes of yarn — and shipping cost can move the real total meaningfully. The catalogs that win on price, like Connecting Threads on fabric or Piping-style house brands, usually pair low unit prices with free-shipping thresholds, so consolidating a larger order beats placing several small ones. For heavy fine-art orders, Dick Blick's scale and frequent shipping promotions are part of why it stays cost-competitive.

The second consideration is kit versus loose supplies. Herrschners and MindWare both lean on the kit format — a complete project packaged with everything needed — which is the right choice for beginners, for gifts, and for anyone who wants a defined outcome rather than a shopping list. Loose supplies from Dick Blick or Nasco suit experienced crafters who know exactly what a project requires and want to choose each component. Buying a kit first to learn a craft, then switching to loose supplies once you know your preferences, is a sensible progression. Finally, the timing of sales matters: the craft catalogs run heavy seasonal promotions, and stocking up on staples — thread, paint, yarn — during a sale is how regular crafters keep their per-project cost down. Planning a larger order around a promotion usually beats buying piecemeal at full price.

Matching the catalog to the craft

These five do not compete so much as divide the craft world by discipline.

The choice follows your craft almost automatically. If you paint, draw, or work in any traditional fine-art medium, Dick Blick is the comprehensive source. If your craft is needlework — knitting, crochet, cross-stitch — Herrschners has the deepest selection and the kit format that suits it. Quilters and sewists get the best fabric value from Connecting Threads. Anyone equipping a classroom or supplying a group should start with Nasco's bulk orientation. And for a giftable creative project rather than raw materials, MindWare is the activity-focused option. Many crafters keep two of these on hand — one supply specialist for their primary craft and a second for kits and gifts — because no single catalog spans the full range of what a hands-on hobby actually requires.

References

• Dick Blick: https://www.dickblick.com
• Herrschners: https://www.herrschners.com
• Connecting Threads: https://www.connectingthreads.com
• Nasco: https://www.enasco.com
• MindWare: https://www.mindware.com